Election betting platforms brought in billions of dollars as users around the world wagered on who would win Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election, according to an NBC News analysis of betting platforms.
Polymarket, an online betting platform that is not supposed to allow U.S. users, brought in over $3.6 billion in bets on the presidential election, with $1.5 billion wagered on Donald Trump and $1 billion on Vice President Kamala Harris.
Although bets on presidential candidates remained the most popular, bets on the outcomes in specific states racked up a total trading volume of over $270 million on Polymarket and over $120 million on Kalshi, a legal betting platform that serves U.S. users.
On both of the sites, Pennsylvania was the state with the highest betting volume, with over $33 million in wagers on Polymarket and more than $14 million on Kalshi. Michigan and Georgia followed close behind, and the rest of the swing states were all in the top 15 states with the highest trading volume. On both Polymarket and Kalshi, bets on swing states alone made up around half of the total trading volume on state outcomes.
Eric Zitzewitz, an economics professor at Dartmouth University, said that this emphasis on swing states is to be expected, as they’re usually the states people see as the most crucial in the election.
“There’s not that much interest in ‘Will the Republicans win Alabama?’ or ‘Will the Democrats win California?’ People are kind of interested in the states that are going to decide the election,” Zitzewitz said.
One Polymarket bettor, who identified himself as “Théo” in an interview with
The Washington Post
, had
bet over $28 million on Trump winning
the presidential election using multiple betting accounts. According to research done by the blockchain analytics platform Chainalysis,
up to 11 different accounts could be associated with the trader, potentially netting him $83.5 million or more from betting
. “Théo” had put money down on all the swing states,
according to Polymarket’s analytics
. On Pennsylvania alone, he was able to redeem at least $1 million, the analytics showed.
Although Polymarket is not able to be used in the U.S. after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission halted its operations in 2022, it is making plans to begin operating again in America,
according to Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan
.
Bloomberg reported
that with the bets made by “Théo,” France’s gambling regulator has begun investigating if Polymarket’s practices are in compliance with its rules. Polymarket did not respond to a request for comment.
Monitoring the bets on swing states played an interesting role in this year’s election, Zitzewitz said, with constantly updating betting markets helping to give people a quicker idea of who may be leading, as opposed to polls.
“The people who are trading in the markets trying to make money have very strong incentives to be looking for the most up-to-date news so that they can get the jump on others and make some money that way. As a result, markets tend to move immediately as things are reported,” Zitzewitz said.
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